# Traces

> Everything you need to know to start exploring traces with Last9.

Source: https://last9.io/docs/traces/

## Sending Traces to Last9

You can send a variety of distributed traces to Last9 from different sources:

- [Using OpenTelemetry](/docs/integrations/observability/opentelemetry/)
- and, [other integrations](/docs/integrations/)

You can also view the list of integrations in the Last9 app as well under the [Traces category on the Integrations screen](https://app.last9.io/integrations?category=traces).

## Exploring Traces

There are 3 primary ways of exploring Traces depending on specific use cases.

- **Traces Explorer:** Use Last9's native UI for traces with first-class search and filters. Quickly view dependencies with a waterfall time, span attributes and events, and related logs by clicking on any trace. [Learn more](/docs/traces-explorer/).
- **Grafana Tempo:** For people who are familiar with Tempo, use Last9's embedded instance of Grafana. [Learn more](/docs/grafana-tempo-in-last9/).
- **SQL Exploration:** Last9 also allows exploring raw traces data using Clickhouse SQL. This is useful for adhoc exploration of Traces for deeper analysis. Contact Last9 team to provision a custom SQL data source for you.

## Accelerated Queries

Last9 accelerates queries when a query is made on following attributes.

- Service
- Span Name

For this reason, users are encouraged to filter by `Service` or `Span Name` first when searching for long time ranges.

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## Troubleshooting

Please get in touch with us on [Discord](https://discord.com/invite/Q3p2EEucx9) or [Email](mailto:support@last9.io) if you have any questions.